By Coach Jeff

“…animals gain weight very quickly and develop other unhealthy symptoms when they eat too much fructose. Yet the same thing does not occur when animals are fed equal amounts of other sugars. In fact, eating fructose causes far more accumulation of abdominal fat – the most dangerous kind – than other forms of sugar, even if the same number of calories is consumed.” – Dr. Richard J. Johnson, author of The Sugar Fix: The High-Fructose Fallout That’s Making You Fat & Sick

So what does the traditional high carbohydrate diet of Japan have in common with the very low carbohydrate Atkins diet? How can these two totally opposite dietary approaches both result in lean physiques and improved blood lipid profiles?

Because they’re both low in fructose!

Over the past year or so, I’ve come to the conclusion that our society’s  gluttonous consumption of the sugar fructose (Mostly from table sugar & high fructose corn syrup, which are  both about 50% fructose) is the primary contributor to today’s epidemic of obesity, “metabolic syndrome” and type-2 diabetes.

This conviction of mine has really “built to a head” in the past several months. So much so, that I’ve mostly turned my back on the notion (Put forth by many low-carbohydrate diet gurus/doctors) that carbohydrates in general have a tendency to increase one’s likelihood of becoming fat and/or diabetic.

I am now utterly convinced that only one specific carbohydrate is the primary culprit driving today’s obesity and diabetes epidemic. And that carbohydrate is called fructose.

I’m not saying fructose is the only problem with the standard American diet and lifestyle. White flour products, super-sized portions of greasy fast-foods, couch potato lifestyles, nutrient deficiencies, chronic stress, trans-fatty acids, chronic sleep deprivation and other factors are all contributing to our nation’s (and other nations) expanding waistlines and high rates of type-2 diabetes as well. But I believe excessive fructose consumption, all by itself, is probably doing at least as much harm as all those other things combined.

Fructose is in bread, ketchup, relish, table sugar, agave syrup, honey, sodas, sports drinks, hamburger helper, ice cream, processed meats, hot dogs, most low-fat salad dressings, breakfast cereals, fruit juices, sports drinks, energy drinks and just about everywhere else it seems. I mean this stuff is hard to avoid! But avoid it, you must.

There are basically two types of sugars we consume in large amounts. I’ve already demonstrated that we consume lots of fructose. We also consume lots of glucose.

Table sugar, evaporated cane juice, honey and high fructose corn syrup are all composed of a roughly 50/50 mixture of glucose and fructose. And agave syrup, which is currently trendy amongst many health conscious folks is even higher in fructose. About 90% of it’s total sugar content is from fructose. Yikes!

It’s the fructose portion of these various sources of sugar that causes most of the problems, rather than the glucose. Glucose (Which is also prevalent in starchy foods such as bread, rice, etc.) is relatively benign compared to fructose.

“…we have powerful direct evidence to show that consuming too much fructose-rich sugar and HFCS causes the toxic brew of conditions known as metabolic syndrome. Moreover, this same body of research suggests that starchy foods do not induce metabolic syndrome.” – Dr. Richard Johnson

A Quick Side Note about Glucose

I’m NOT saying that eating pure, refined, concentrated glucose is a good idea, by the way. You want to get most of your glucose from s-l-o-w-l-y digesting and relatively unrefined starches instead. Most starches are basically big gobs of chemically bonded chains of glucose, with very little fructose.

When you eat a slowly digesting, natural source of starch such as brown rice, the glucose in the rice is slowly absorbed into your bloodstream. Kind of like being on a slow intravenous drip of glucose. This keeps your blood-sugar levels on an even keel, and prevents your pancreas from having to furiously pump out insulin to counteract excessively high levels of glucose in the bloodstream.

But the pure glucose in sugar, white flour and other rapidly digesting sources of glucose does indeed cause some problems.

Just not as badly as fructose.

And let’s not forget that glucose is absolutely required by the human body. When people talk about “blood-sugar” they’re talking about glucose. Glucose is the sugar in your bloodstream.

Without glucose in your blood you would pass out and die.

In fact, it’s so critical to maintain adequate (But not TOO high – that would be diabetes) levels of glucose in your bloodstream, that the human body has a “back-up system” for creating it’s own glucose, in the event of starvation or during extremely low-carb diets. Your body, through a process called gluconeogenesis, will actually convert dietary proteins or your own muscle tissue into glucose to ensure you don’t drop dead from inadequate glucose to the brain during starvation or very low carb diets.

The fact that our body is designed with such a back-up system in place, for maintaining adequate blood-glucose levels certainly demonstrates that glucose in-and-of-itself is not some kind of metabolic poison, but rather a critical fuel source for the body’s cells. Particularly for the brain and central nervous system.

Your brain and central nervous system alone use about 130 to 150 grams of glucose per day. You need glucose. But it’s best to get your glucose from s-l-o-w-l-y digesting natural starchy foods, rather than from quickly digesting sugars, white rice, white bread, high glycemic breakfast cereals and other highly refined carbohydrates. But again, even bad sources of glucose, probably do less overall damage than excess fructose.

The theory used to be that fructose was healthier than glucose, because only glucose causes a significant rise in insulin levels, whereas fructose does not. Thus fructose was deemed a “low-glycemic” sugar that did not “over-stress” your pancreas to produce insulin. Glucose was known as a high-glycemic sugar that did make your pancreas have to work hard at pumping out insulin.

But as mentioned above, glucose is really only a problem when it’s obtained from quickly digesting, refined carbohydrates that cause sudden spikes in blood sugar levels, which then forces your pancreas to go into overtime, pumping out insulin. So yeah, that’s not a good scenario.

But NATURAL sources of glucose, such as brown rice, lentils, beans, sprouted grain breads, etc are NOT a problem for the vast majority of people.

“…the glucose in starchy foods may cause blood glucose levels to rise, and stimulate the pancreas to produce insulin. But this is normal and healthy. Glucose doesn’t cause insulin resistance; fructose does.” – Dr. Richard Johnson

The real problems are over-consumption of fructose and REFINED sources of glucose – with fructose being the worst of the two.

In fact, recent science has so conclusively shown it’s excessive consumption of fructose that’s largely responsible for today’s epidemic of obesity and diabetes, rather than carbs in general, that even Gary Taubes, who wrote an encyclopedic low-carb book entitled Good Calories, Bad Calories recently conceded that fructose may be up to 90% of the problem, rather than carbs in general.

That is a very stunning admission from a man who wrote a book which ultimately demonized all carbs, and advocated an extremely low carbohydrate diet, such as the one recommended by the late Dr. Robert Atkins. The fact that an award winning science journalism writer like Gary Taubes who, as I mentioned, wrote a book advocating a very low intake of ALL carbs, would now concede that perhaps it’s NOT carbs in general that are the problem, but rather fructose…well…that is huge!

And I have to commend Taubes for being man enough and objective enough to make such a concession, even though the “fructose hypothesis” largely contradicts (Though not entirely) the “carbohydrate hypothesis” that was the foundation and overall thesis of his book.

The graph above gives us a nice visual demonstration of the fact that excessive fructose consumption is the primary driver of today’s epidemic of obesity. It shows us that as fructose consumption has steadily risen over the years, so have rates of obesity. And that the increases in both almost perfectly parallel each other. Mere coincidence? I think not.

This rule also applies to type-2 diabetes, though I don’t have a nifty looking graph to demonstrate that fact.

Fructose does it’s damage through some “sneaky” long-term biochemical processes. It’s short-term effects appear rather harmless, which is why fructose used to get a free-pass with most nutritionists and medical doctors. Since it does not provoke an insulin response the way glucose does it was thought to be better for you than glucose.

But that assumption has turned out to be a BIG “oops” of tragic consequence. Because recent research has conclusively shown that high levels of fructose actually cause much more harm in the LONG-TERM than glucose.

Basically it is excess fructose (From big-gulp sodas, sweets, sports drinks, etc) which causes long-term insulin resistance, rather than glucose. Insulin resistance is an unhealthy state in which your body’s cells have become “resistant” to insulin. Insulin is a storage hormone, that is supposed to deliver glucose and other nutrients to your body’s trillions of cells. But long-term abuse of fructose greatly interferes with this process. And so you literally “starve” at a cellular level – even when consuming more than enough calories.

But your fat cells take much longer to become insulin resistant than the other cells in your body. So what happens, when you’re in the early to intermediate stages of insulin resistance, is that much of the food you eat can not “get into” most of your body’s cells, but can still get into fat cells.

Thus a large part of what you eat get’s selectively partitioned into your fat cells, rather than being used for energizing and repairing your body’s other cells. So in this state, even if you are eating plenty of (or too many) calories, most of your cells are not getting the benefit of those calories, because the incoming calories are being largely diverted into your fat cells. So your body is “tricked” into thinking your starving. And in a sense it is starving.

This then leads to “hyperphagia,” which is just a fancy way of saying your brain is more or less forcing you to overeat in a desperate attempt to keep our body’s trillions of cells form starving to death. And so you get fatter and fatter. And since your non-fat cells are literally starving, your energy levels plummet. Sound familiar to anyone out there?

But even the ole fat cells eventually become insulin resistant after years of fructose abuse. And that’s where things start to get real ugly. Because once your fat cells start “refusing” to take in incoming glucose (and other nutrients which can be converted to fat) your blood-sugar levels will start to rise to dangerous levels. At that point you are officially a type-2 diabetic.

And because fructose must be metabolized by the liver, high consumption of fructose over a prolonged period of time results in Non Alcohol Fatty Liver Disease. (NAFLD) You’ve probably heard of how alcoholics often develop cirrhosis of the liver? Well lots of fructose does much the same thing to your liver as alcohol. Just without the buzz.

I’ve personally met people in their thirties, who already had NAFLD. I remember one of those people telling me they drank lots of Gatorade, because they thought it was healthy. Little did this person know that Gatorade has loads of fructose in it, and that’s very possibly what ruined his liver!

It’s no coincidence that we’re also seeing an explosion of NAFLD, along with diabetes and obesity. It’s just amazing how so many health problems have increased in direct proportion to our society’s increased use of fructose.

There’s a whole lot more I could write about here, describing the many complex ways in which excess fructose (Though the small amount you’d get form normal consumption of fruit is harmless. So don’t let this little anti-fructose rant of mine scare you away from fruit for gosh sakes.) wrecks your waistline and health.

But what I want to do now, is share a very important YouTube video with you. It’s a lecture by Robert Lustig, M.D., who is a professor of pediatrics at the University of California in San Francisco.

The video is entitled Sugar: The Bitter Truth.

In this video, Dr. Lustig lays out a rock-solid case against high consumption of fructose. There are a few places in the video, in which he gets into very technical biochemical discussions which will bore most people to death, but you can easily fast-forward through those parts if you like.

I also have a few minor points of contention with a few of his statements. Mainly his incorrect assertion that, as a society, we’re currently eating less fat than we used to. That is ONLY true if you look at fat as a PERCENTAGE of our total calorie intake. But our TOTAL fat intake is actually HIGHER than it’s ever been. So that’s my main point of disagreement with Dr. Lustig, and a fairly minor one at that.

But overall, his presentation is done in a very engaging and interesting manner. The guy is a very good speaker.

A few of the video’s highlights are as follows.

• In his opening comments he talks about how both the Atkins diet, which is very low in ALL carbohydrates gives very good results. And how the Japanese diet, which is HIGH in starchy sources of carbs also gives very good results. So how do these two seemingly polar-opposite diets both work so well? Because they both are low in fructose.

• At about 29-minutes into his presentation, he does a good job of exposing and debunking the famous/infamous “Seven Countries Study” which purported to show that saturated fat was the main dietary evil, but actually showed no such thing. And how we’ve based decades of official dietary policy on that extremely flawed study. I particularly enjoyed it when he said “The Seven Countries Study has a hole in it as big as the one in the U.S.S. Cole.”

• At about 44-minutes into the video he discusses how calories from fructose are “not seen” by the brain, and how that leads to overeating.

• At about 50-minutes he discusses why glucose (As found in natural starchy foods) is NOT bad for you, the way fructose is.

• At about an hour into the video he discusses why exercise is overrated as a calorie burner, (Something I’m constantly telling my personal training clients) but that exercise’s main benefit comes instead from it’s effect on increasing your cell’s ability to properly handle glucose and insulin. And also how exercise helps you “detoxify” fructose from your system and keeps levels of the fat promoting hormone cortisol in check.

• At about 1:15 into it, he talks about what he calls “the fructosification of America” by the fast-food and processed food industries. Basically how our current food supply is awash in a sea of fructose. And as a pediatrician, he has some things to say specifically about how we’re poisoning our kids with excess fructose. Starting with Mommas on high-sugar diets loaded with fructose who POISON their baby in the womb with that fructose – leading to the baby being born with some degree of insulin resistance from day-1, and also making him or her more prone to become fat. Dr. Lusting then highlights how infant baby formulas further the damage since many of them are about 50% sugar by weight! He refers to them as “baby milkshakes” and feels these milkshakes are largely to blame for the current epidemic of obesity in 6-month olds.  He also mentions that it’s been shown that the more children are exposed to sweets the more they’ll crave sweets as adults.

• Oh yeah…I also love the fact that he hammers home the very important point that excessive fruit juice consumption isn’t much better for you than excessive soda consumption. It just drive me nuts that almost everyone thinks drinking lots of fruit juice is healthy. It isn’t!

And there’s lots more good stuff in there as well. In fact, this video is so good, and so chock-full of important nutritional information that it’s generated quite a bit of buzz on the internet. It truly is a must-see.

And here it is!